The National Industrial Court on Wednesday, September 21, 2022, ordered the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) to call off the strike action. It will be recalled that the Minister of Labour, Chris Ngige, on September 12, 2022 dragged ASUU to court in a desperate bid to end the ongoing strike action embarked upon by ASUU.
The ruling by the NIC comes after the counsel to the FG, Mr Igwe SAN and the counsel to ASUU, Femi Falana SAN, had both prayed the court to adjudicate on the strike action having laid bare relevant facts in defense of their clients.
Citing section 18 (1) (e) of the Trade Disputes Act 2004, the counsel to the FG, Mr Igwe SAN, noted among other things, that a suit being adjudicated on in a court makes strike action by a worker untenable, and for that reason, the stiking academic staff should be ordered to go back to work.
Counsel to the defendant, Mr Femi Falana SAN, equally cited, among other things, the prosecutor’s failure to follow due process by having to first direct the matter to the Industrial Abitration Panel (IAP) as stipulated in part 1 of TDA 2004 before approaching the National Industrial Court, and urged the court to dismiss the application or direct parties to the IAP.